


before and after

by zhuzhting



Series: standing still; falling deep [2]
Category: NINE PERCENT (Band), 偶像练习生 | Idol Producer (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Angst, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Post-Break Up
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-06
Updated: 2018-11-06
Packaged: 2019-08-19 18:35:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16539950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zhuzhting/pseuds/zhuzhting
Summary: the moments before and after through different eyesor, the prequel no one asked for





	before and after

Xukun has never felt powerless in his life. He was born in a family that had all the power and influence. He had the privilege to be able to speak up and fight against the asshole who had kicked a beggar, laughing as the man flinched, crouched down and making himself small. Xukun had fought then, had punched the man in the face and walked away as he looked up at Xukun, eyes wide and a little angry, but unable to do anything because Xukun was Xukun, and his family had more power than he could ever imagine.

Xukun had always been the different one. The dark stain in a sea of clean whites and pristine cottons, but he didn’t care. The world was so much more than the delicate bubble the rest of them let themselves be encased in.

When the world ends, Xukun throws himself into the flames and he feels alive when it burns his skin and tears away at everything he had ever known.

He was alone, finally. No more eyes, or money, or power, the perfect portrait turning into ash and dust.

And he had never felt more exalted. He was alone and it was the best feeling in the world.

\---

“I have a group.” The male extends a hand to him, uncaring for how Xukun is covered in blood, dead mutt laying at his feet, metal rod still dripping with blood in his hands. “You should join us.”

Xukun blinks slowly, not quite believing his eyes. He rarely came across any people, only ever brushing shoulders with them and parting ways. This was the first time he’s had the opportunity to appraise someone’s face properly, to be invited to touch someone.

The earnest look is one that Xukun doesn’t understand. It wasn’t something that belonged in this world, before or after, it was paper petals asking to be consumed by the flames.

Xukun grins, all the bite and fire that rivaled a supernova. “I’m Cai Xukun.”

The man smiles and Xukun doesn’t realize it but his hand is gripping tighter. “My name is Zhu Zhengting.”

\---

Zhengting is pretty petals that hid thorns that latched on before Xukun realizes what was happening. He’s delicate flowers that bloom very few and far in between and Xukun wants to store him in glass containers, all purity and untouched beauty.

The group welcomes him with kindness that was dead in a world that was nothing but a corpse. Xukun doesn’t understand how they could be so unguarded, but he’s suddenly afraid of burning everything that he had down.

“I don’t remember what day it is anymore,” Zhengting confesses to him one night, fingers tangled in his and eyes at the sky that was clearer now than it ever was before the world’s lights died, lit up by stars Xukun didn’t know existed before. “I was too busy trying to keep everyone alive, I forgot to keep track of time.”

Time is irrelevant to Xukun, there would only ever be a before and an after, now was a vast scale of time and space that didn’t matter. The seconds didn’t matter to Xukun, not when he had the warmth of Zhengting’s palm pressed against his.

Xukun keeps his thoughts to himself and Zhengting continues with a bitter laugh. “I don’t remember how many birthdays have passed.” And if his eyes are a little wet, Xukun pretends not to see in the darkness. “All I know is that Quanzhe is now taller than me and Justin doesn’t ask to be carried on my shoulders anymore.”

Xukun feels the vines and thorns twist around his body and he lets them dig deeper.

“Do you remember how old you are?”

Xukun doesn’t know, he can’t say he cares either. He shrugs. “Twenty, maybe?”

Zhengting takes a moment to take in the information. Xukun thinks he looks so very pretty with tears in his eyes.

“I was eighteen when the world went to shit,” Zhengting says after a while. “It feels like I’ve been eighteen for the longest time.”

“As long as you’re alive,” Xukun says and the way Zhengting’s fingers tighten around him is a lot like the pricking of thorns, like vines wrapping around Xukun like a vice. He’d gladly let the thorns dig into his skin and rip him open like this, he thinks. “None of that matters as long as you keep breathing.”

Zhengting smiles, easily comforted. “Yeah.” He sighs into the night. “As long as we’re alive.”

\---

“Xukun, isn’t this a little dangerous?”

Xukun lets out a laugh, “It’s very dangerous.”

He drags Zhengting along anyways, walking past the foliage on unsteady footing, not really able to see what was under them. A mutt could come out of nowhere and Xukun wouldn’t be able to see. He grips Zhengting’s hand tighter.

They had left the others at their temporary camping place, assured that Yanchen and Xingjie would be able to fend off any attacker, not that Zhengting didn’t trust Wenjun and Xinchun but he still tended to keep his family on a tight hold, always watching, embedded deep.

Finally reaching a smaller clearing, Xukun pulls him to his side. “I found it yesterday and it seems to be uninhabited, but I’m not sure if it’s safe yet.”

Zhengting stares, blinks a little as if unsure with what he’s seeing. “A house?”

“It’s close enough to the city without actually being in it.” Xukun explains, nervous somehow, voice tentative and small. “I think it would be a nice place to settle.”

Zhengting remains silent by his side, Xukun can feel his fingers losing circulation from where their hands are linked.

“It can be a home.” Xukun says, quiet and suddenly very scared. “It’s not much but-”

“I love it.”

Zhengting is looking at him with tears slipping and sliding down his cheeks, both eyes sparkling with tears that drown Xukun out and they crash against his flames with a fury, like a campfire taken by the sea. “It’s perfect.” Zhengting says. “We’ve never had one of those before.”

Xukun laughs as kisses are peppered against his face, littered with quiet “thank you”s and he’s never felt more alive.

Not being alone wasn’t so bad after all.

\---

Xukun sees the state of Beijing and his blood boils.

He looks at Zhengting who frowns but looks back at him with what can only be defeat and his fire burns brighter than ever before. He holds Zhengting’s hand in his and vows he wouldn’t stand by and watch.

They walk into the furnace together and Xukun fights to extinguish the flames for Zhengting. His fire incinerating everything so that there was nothing left to burn.

Everything was for Zhengting.

\---

Xukun runs headfirst into the fire and it takes him a long time to realize that Zhengting’s hand is no longer in his and he can’t see him amidst the smoke.

“I can’t do this anymore Xukun.”

Xukun frowns, watching as Zhengting lets go of his hand and stands up from where he’s seated. “What do you mean?”

“I-” Zhengting exhales, shaky. Xukun’s fire always ate up what little oxygen he had. Xukun wonders when Zhengting had started to hold his breath around him. “I can’t stand by and watch you die. I can’t let the others get hurt.”

Xukun gets up and he winces when his stomach stings with a phantom pain that only seems to make Zhengting’s eyes turn to steel. “I can’t leave things the way they are,” Xukun says. “You know that.”

“I do.” Zhengting says, and he’s taking another step back. “That’s why I’m going to leave instead.”

“You can’t.” And it’s a plea that’s ripped out straight from Xukun’s chest, a cavernous hole waiting to be filled up again. “After all we’ve been through.”

“That’s exactly it,” Zhengting says and he’s almost out the open door. The darkness of the sewer making it hard to see, especially through the tears clouding Xukun’s vision. “We’ve survived this long, but you seem to be so ready to throw that away.” His voice hardens. “Xinchun almost died today, Xukun.”

Xinchun had reacted too slow, didn’t see the knife coming down at him in time. Mutts were ugly things that attacked mindlessly. People, in comparison, were hideous.

And Xukun freezes, breath hitched and lungs filling with water, fire gone.

He was never first choice. He knew that. He had always known that. He thought he’d accepted it.

Now, the knowledge freezes his bones.

The sounds of Zhengting’s footsteps bounce against the walls.

Xukun wants nothing more than to burn.

\---

Xukun picks the thorns out of his skin and it’s like he’s ripping his heart out instead.

They dig and dig and  _dig_ , so very deep that they have become a part of him.

“Are we still heading out?” Xingjie looks at Xukun with something akin to pity and Xukun hates it so much, his hand holds the knife and it digs into his skin.

“Yes.” Xukun deposits the knife into one of his holsters. “Tell the rest to prepare at the exit.” Another blade is concealed.

Xukun glances at Yanchen before they leave the sewers, sees the way he grips the handle of his axe too tight, sees the way he smiles as if there was something not quite right in his psyche, like he’s ready to kill the world. He wonders if Yanchen lays awake at night picking away at thorns too.

None of it matters now, his cause is the only thing that matters until Zhengting comes back.

Zhengting will come back.

Xukun works to burn everything down while he waits.

\---

Zhengting doesn’t come back.

Xukun waits a year, and then two. By the third, he feels like a dead star floating is the sea of the sky, sucking into himself and becoming the deepest, darkest hole.

Xukun can no longer feel the flames at his feet, so he douses the world in gasoline.

“Xukun you have to stop.” Xingjie says to him one day, eying his shirt stained with blood.

Xukun sits back up, forces his limbs to move, numb to the pain that blossoms at his side, ignores the blood that blooms into a flower. “Tell them to prepare for our next run tomorrow.”

Xingjie reaches out, pushes him down with a force that surprises Xukun. “He’s not going to come back Xukun.” And they’re words Xukun refuses to hear, refuses to acknowledge even when they echo through his mind when he’s alone. “And if he does, what would be the point if you’re dead?”

“He can’t.” Xukun’s mouth fills with cotton and his eyes fill with tears he didn’t know still existed. “I need to make the world better. He’ll come back when the world is better.”

Xingjie lets him cry into his shoulder, fingers carding through his hair, and for a moment Xukun can pretend. “Zhengting.” He says, a mantra that fills his being until there is nothing else. “Zhengting.”

“I know, Xukun.” Xingjie whispers into his hair, the leader of the revolution held in his arms like a broken doll. “I know.”

\---

Zhenghao had been missing for days and Xukun tries to convince himself that it’s just another life lost. Lives were always lost, and this wasn’t any different.

But he searches every night anyways, frantic and frustrated because Zhenghao was a kid. He was Xukun’s kid. Maybe now, he could understand Zhengting.

“Xukun!” A flurry of movement and a mop of hair is all Xukun sees, his mind not quite processing the sound of that voice.

For a moment, all that mattered was that Zhenghao was there and that he was alive

“How?” Xukun asks and it’s not something he cares all much about because Zhenghao was here and the details don’t matter.

Zhenghao looks up at him like he was a hero, like he had saved the world. Xukun wanted to tell him he was looking in the wrong direction. He couldn’t even convince the only family he had known to stay.

“Someone saved me.” Zhenghao says, fast and excited, already tugging Xukun somewhere. “Zhengting stitched me up and brought me here.”

Xukun feels heat lick at his fingertips. “What?”

“I didn’t know there were people living just outside the city.” Zhenghao continues, oblivious. “They have a house not far from here.”

Xukun sees a small clearing, a quaint place. Their home.

“Justin got hurt on the way back here, so they’re at the medical bay with Yue Yue.”

Xukun’s heart stops. His whole body  _burns_.

And his strides are fast, his steps sure and steady because if he froze, he might never pick himself back up, Zhengting might disappear. He doesn’t even recall letting go of Zhenghao’s hand.

He doesn’t stop until he’s in the room and his eyes scan the people once before they reach a figure so familiar yet so different. Xukun is suddenly drowning in ice water.

He rips his eyes away and fans the small flicker of light left in himself, tries to kindle the embers once again. It had taken one glance to extinguish him.

He turns to Yue Yue, instead, refusing to look, to give in. He doesn’t know what he should say, afraid of saying too much, or speaking too little.

_I love you. IloveyouIloveyouIloveyou._

“What’s going on here?”

**Author's Note:**

> yes, i know people have probably given up on this story. but this has been sitting in my drafts for the longest time and i was trying to procrastinate today. so here is a gift from the dead. hopefully, i'll be able to post stories more often, though no promises since i have to start working on my thesis :(((
> 
> be friends with [me](https://twitter.com/zhuzhting)


End file.
